An unsettling case
by internallyscreamingdaily
Summary: Sherlock and John have found another murder case to solve together, but something about this particular one has John feeling a bit... vulnerable. Johnlock.
1. Chapter 1

"You don't suppose Lestrade would be mad at us for taking this case into our hands without notifying him?" John asked, walking fast to keep up with his tall friend's lengthy stride.

"Nah, he probably took one look at the case file and set it aside," he replied, waving said case file.

"Why do you say that?"

"It's not his division."

It was a warm saturday morning, and the streets were crowded with people. Not a lot of them recognized Sherlock and John, though, as they rarely recognized John without seeing Sherlock first, and they rarely recognized Sherlock without the hat, let alone what he was currently wearing.

Despite the hour, or the fact they were out in public, Sherlock was dressed in pajama pants and a ragtag bathrobe. In place of his usual blue scarf was a tie.

The tie was John's fault, he supposed. When Sherlock had insisted that he was ready to leave for the case, John had suggested that he dress in something a little more formal for his client. Sherlock had gone to his bedroom and returned seconds later with the tie. He hadn't even bothered to tie it, just left it draped around his neck.

John stopped, looking at a poster on a nearby building. "Hey Sherlock, look. It's a poster for that movie I was talking about."

Sherlock glanced at the poster. "Ugh, dull. You can predict half the plotline from the title."

A bit downcast by his reaction, John continued to follow his companion.

"Hey, that isn't your usual bathrobe," John noticed.

"Yeah, the other one got a bit messy during my experiment with human organs. You told me that I shouldn't wear bloody clothes into public?" He put on his one thinking face, the one that looked half like he was squinting into the distance, half like he had just eaten something sour. "You said it… unnerves them or something?"

Suddenly pajamas and a bathrobe seemed like a perfectly fine thing to wear to a client's house.

"Ah, here it is," John said, gesturing to the house beside them.

The lawn was surrounded by a black iron fence. The garden was full of flowers and other kinds of healthy plants. The house itself was quite a few stories, made of brick and stone with quite a few windows.

Sherlock opened the gate and stepped inside before waiting just a moment for John to get through. They strode up to the house together, and John rang the doorbell.

The door swung open, and a man stepped outside to meet them. He was tall and thin with red hair, dull green eyes, and skin tinted a very slight yellow-grey color. He paused for a moment to look over Sherlock's untraditional choice of clothes before introducing himself. "You must be the detectives my tenant hired. I'm Charlie, her landlord." He extended his hand in Sherlock's direction.

Sherlock didn't take Charlie's hand. Instead, he circled the man, his eyes rapidly scanning back and forth as they did when he was thinking about a particularly intriguing case. He made a few circles around a now confused Charlie, drinking in every detail.

Sherlock never looked at any particular person this thoroughly, John thought. It usually took an entire case to get Sherlock this interested.

An unwelcome sense of unease flooded John's veins. Sherlock didn't pay nearly this much attention to _him_ when they had first met. He hadn't even looked at him properly; he had just given him a glance and then gone back to his microscope. Why was Sherlock paying so much attention to this guy?

John crossed his arms over his chest. He didn't know why this unsettled him so much, but he didn't like it.

Sherlock completed the circle and came back to face Charlie. Then, as if just realizing the proper thing to do, took Charlie's still extended hand and shook it.

"Her flat is on the second floor," Charlie stated. His expression was no longer confused, but held a warm, amused curiosity.

"Ah, yes. The case. Right."

John blanched. Sherlock had rated this case a nine that morning, and something about this man was so interesting, that even for a second, he had _forgotten_ about it?

As Sherlock walked in, Charlie extended his hand towards John. John pretended not to notice it and walked inside.

The detective and his partner travelled up a few flights of stairs before coming to the woman's flat, the sound of a stereo playing classical music becoming louder with each flight. Completely ignoring the fact that he was supposed to knock, Sherlock threw the door open and stepped inside.

The middle-aged woman who greeted them smelled strongly of lavender; too strongly for John's taste. She had overdone whatever perfume she had put on. She extended her hand towards John, her wrist covered in bracelets of all sorts. John extended his own hand, then, realizing that it was the wrong one, extended his opposite hand. "Pleased to meet you, I'm Emily."

"Pleased to meet you," John echoed, "I'm sorry to hear about your husband."

"It will hurt less once I can see to punishing whoever hurt him," she replied, shaking Sherlock's hand. "I'm hoping that you two can help with that." She turned the stereo off.

"Explain how you found him," Sherlock ordered.

"I heard ... _something_ upstairs when I had just come into the building," Emily explained. "I came up to check on him, and his head was bashed open on the corner of the coffee table. But he wasn't in a natural position, like he just fell there. I'm sure someone murdered him."

Sherlock looked around the room. It was sort of medium, kind of like the living room in at their flat. Windows adorned one side, a half-empty bottle of lavender perfume sitting on one of the windowsills. A loveseat was sat against the wall opposite the door. The coffee table was in the middle, completely covered in a high, unorganised pile of complicated pieces of sheet music. The stereo sat on the opposite side of the room of the widows. Beside the stereo were two instrument stands, one holding a violin, the other one empty. Sherlock seemed to take special interest to the violin.

"So you and your husband were musicians together?" Sherlock asked.

"Yes, we played those," Emily answered, gesturing to the stands.

"What was the other instrument?"

"A flute," Emily replied. "It's not here right now, it's being cleaned at the instrument shop down the street."

"I see. Did you and your husband teach each other how to play each other's instruments?"

Emily sighed, getting a distant expression in her eye. "No. That's one of the things I'll regret not asking him- oh, and he played so beautifully and passionately, too."

Sherlock looked at the bracelets on Emily's right wrist. "That's quite lovely. May I see it?"

"Er- they hold quite a lot of sentimental value. I don't really like to take them off."

"Ah." Sherlock went over to the coffee table and took a big whiff of it, much to Emily's confusion. "Did he usually take a specific side of the loveseat? He asked.

"He always sat on the left."

Sherlock walked over to the loveseat and sniffed it all over. When he was done, he stood up straight and announced, "That's all we can do for now. We'll be off, and will get back to you soon."

"Already?" Emily asked, furrowing her brows.

"With Sherlock, a minute is all he needs," John replied. Seeing her skeptical expression, he added, "Don't worry, ma'am. Despite his nature being quite… _odd,_ Sherlock is the best detective in all of England." he then turned and followed Sherlock down the stairs.

Charlie stopped them at the bottom of the stairs, a tray of tea and biscuits in his arms. "Going so soon? I was hoping you would join me for tea."

John continued for the door, expecting Sherlock to refuse in his usual politeness lacking manner, only to stop when he heard him say, "Tea and biscuits would be quite lovely, thank you!"

John turned around and was about to insist that they had other things to do. The look on Sherlock's face stopped him cold.

Sherlock was grinning, not the creepy "I know what's going on" grin John had seen so many times, but a pleasant grin a person might even describe as warm. As much as this didn't sit well with him, John couldn't bring himself to intervene. Sherlock seemed… happy.

Charlie invited them into his living room, where he and Sherlock drank tea and Sherlock helped himself to quite a few biscuits. John didn't eat anything. He wasn't hungry. Sherlock engaged in small talk with Charlie for at least an hour, keeping a welcome demeanour despite how much he normally despised surface chitchat.

There was only one biscuit left on the tray when Sherlock decided that it was time to go. "This was enjoyable, but we ought to be going. We have a client to solve a mystery for."

John mentally celebrated at this, but his relief was short-lived.

"If I wanted to contact you," Sherlock started.

"Ah, yes." Charlie pulled out a piece of paper and scribbled his number on it before handing it to Sherlock.

Instead of placing the paper in his pocket like he did with most, John watched as he pulled out his phone, entered the number, made a new contact for Charlie, turned his settings on so that if Charlie sent him a call it would ring even if it was on silent, and saved it.

"And if you ever needed me for anything; if you ever wanted to talk," he continued.

John watched in silence as Charlie handed Sherlock his phone and Sherlock entered his own number before returning the phone. He glared at Charlie from by the door as Sherlock gave him a proper goodbye, not just a wave.

When Sherlock finally turned to leave, John exited ahead of him, avoiding looking at his friend.

Sherlock didn't seem to notice, because he marched on, saying that he needed to make another stop before they returned to Baker Street.

John couldn't help but think to himself that it might as well have been to buy candy and flowers for his new "friend" Charlie.

John's jaw dropped when he saw the florist's sign come into view.

Sherlock, however, passed the florist and went into the next store: the instrument shop.

Even after registering this fact, John still stood, stunned on the street. He mentally scolded himself. He was being ridiculous. Sherlock would never do that to him. He then shook his head. If he was so sure that Sherlock would never do that, then why had he been utterly convinced, if only for a moment, that that was exactly what Sherlock was about to do?

He shook his head, trying to clear the thought, and followed his friend into the instrument shop.

When he got in, Sherlock was already examining a flute, which John could only assume belonged to the musician couple. Sherlock sniffed the flute, then handed it back to the person behind the counter. He turned and walked towards John, gesturing for them to leave.

"Back to Baker street, then?" John asked, walking across the sidewalk.

"Yep," he said, popping the p, and already hailing a cab.

Sherlock got into the cab that slowed down beside them. John followed, much more unsettled than he had been that morning.


	2. Chapter 2

They watched telly most of the afternoon. Sherlock didn't yell at it, even when there was an inconsistency even John caught. In fact Sherlock hardly looked at the screen at all. He checked his phone every few minutes. John reasoned that it was because he was waiting for Lestrade to give them a case- but wait, they _were_ on a case.

"So, er- what about Emily?" John looked unsteadily at his companion's distant eyes. "Sherlock?"

Sherlock blinked, then came back to reality a few seconds later. "Ah, yes. I suppose we should text Lestrade and tell him to arrest her."

"Wha- arrest _Emily?"_

"Yes, of course. She murdered him. Isn't it obvious?"

John furrowed his brow. Sherlock sighed.

"When we were downstairs, we couldn't hear the stereo playing on her flat. She said that she was in that spot when she heard something upstairs. Unlikely to begin with that she heard the murderer, and she seemed uncertain of what the sound she supposedly heard was. If it _was_ loud enough to be heard through all of those floors, say, a gunshot, for example, she would have specified what it was like. Then there's the matter of her bracelets."

"Her bracelets?" John repeated.

"Yes, she was wearing quite a lot of them and claimed that they had a lot of sentimental value and did not take them off. However, bracelets that large must have made quite a lot of noise, as I'm sure you noticed. Quite a bit of jingling, very unhelpful for a professional musician, especially a violinist. Lots of moving your hands for a violin."

"How do you know she played the violin?"

"Her handshake. She shook with her left hand, the hand that you put on the strings of a violin. Her fingerpads were extremely calloused, but only in the centers where the strings came into contact with them."

"And what does any of this have to do with anything?" John asked.

"She shook our hands with her left hand. Even if she is left-side dominant, it is very unusual for anyone to shake hands with the left, as you could see when you experienced some confusion this morning. That drew my attention to her right hand, which she seemed to favor less, suggesting that it had been hurt. Upon further investigation, I discovered that there was a nasty bruise on her right wrist that she was trying hard to conceal with the bracelets- why? It was a sign of struggle. How could I tell that she was specifically trying to conceal the bruise with the bracelets? As I've mentioned, bracelets are not good for a musician, but also, there was no difference in the tan on her wrist."

"So she has a bruise that she wants to hide! They aren't exactly pretty, she could just be self-conscious."

"That's not it, though. She said that her husband's head had been bashed open on the corner of the coffee table, but there was sheet music flowing over the edges, rendering the corner less of a likely weapon as the music would have lessened the spike of the edge considerably. Unlikely that the criminal could have shoved onto the table at such an angle that it would have been a lethal blow. We know that the music was there before her husband fell, and not just placed there after, because there was a thin layer of dust accumulating on the papers around the edges. Also, there wasn't enough blood on the table and music. So, he was bashed to death before, then placed along the table to set up the crime scene.

Emily wears heavy lavender perfume, but her husband, as I could tell from his side of the loveseat, smelled of woodsmoke. The flute had the faint woodsmoke smell which it must have obtained from years of him playing it, but it also had an overpowering lavender scent. Unlikely that she would have reason to handle his flute a lot, since she confirmed that she doesn't know how to play it herself. But not only that, it also had a faint smell of blood. Emily had said that the flute was sent to be cleaned, but cleaning a flute takes under a day, and if it was her husband that had sent it to be cleaned, he would have picked it up as soon as it was ready; a professional flutist wouldn't want to leave his prized item in the hands of someone else for long. So it's doubtful that he was murdered between the hours that he sent the flute in and went to pick it up; it would be more likely that his wife would have gotten it dirty in the process of bashing his head in and gone to get it clean when she realized that it would have been evidence. So professional flutist, beaten to death with his own flute."

"Cruel. But why would she draw attention to his murder?"

"Tried to outsmart us. Maybe she thought that if we thought she was concerned, she would be eliminated as a suspect, and if the police ever thought the case suspicious, she wouldn't be caught."

"Wow."

Sherlock typed something into his phone. "Could you notify Lestrade? I'm going out in a few." He didn't even wait for a response, he just left for his bedroom.

Figuring that it would take his mind off of his current situation, John prepared to go to the police station in person rather than texting Lestrade. He walked down the stairs and outside, running over how to sum up everything Sherlock had just told him to Lestrade. It was hard, though, because the case kept reminding him of the landlord Charlie, and how Sherlock had acted around him.


	3. Chapter 3

Two hours, one long explanation, a crazy police chase, and an arrest later, John was back at the flat with nothing to do. He tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for Sherlock to return so that he could tell him about the successful arrest.

John waited in his chair for an hour with nothing to do except be with his distressing thoughts. What was going on with Sherlock? Why did he like this Charlie character so much?

Finally, the door creaked open and Sherlock walked in, dressed in suit and tie.

"What's the occasion?" John asked, peering at his handsome companion.

"Charlie and I had dinner."

John felt himself grow hot. "You _what?"_

"You know," Sherlock said, shutting the door, apparently oblivious to how red John had just gone. "Went to a restaurant. Ate. Talked." He walked out to the living room, a small smile on his face.

John stood, shaking, his hands curled into fists. "You went on a _date?"_

Sherlock furrowed his brow, now taking notice to his friend's body language. "John?"

"You've known him," John spat, "For less than a day, and now you're going out?"

Sherlock blinked in surprise. "John?"

"What makes _him_ so special, huh? Is _he_ better than I am? Is _he_ enough for you?" He looked away for just a moment. "Am _I not_?"

"I don't understand."

John let out a cold laugh. "Of course you don't, _machine._ "

A rare flash of hurt visited Sherlock's eyes.

"None of my friends liked me; you deduced that and told me yourself. And here I was, dreaming that there was _one_ man who wouldn't let me down." He stared Sherlock down. "Of course you don't understand. You don't know what it's like to go through life, hoping that someone, anyone, would show you that they care, would show you that you're fine just the way you are, would show you love, only to be disappointed every time!"

John realized his mistake too late. The pain wasn't subtle in Sherlock's eyes this time. John scolded himself. He wasn't done telling Sherlock everything yet, he couldn't let sympathy get in the way. He raised a shaking finger. "I thought- I thought I meant something to you! I thought I was special to you! I thought I was irreplaceable, for once in my life! So you machine, _freak,_ I hope-"

"Charlie and I aren't dating!"

John took a step back. "What?"

"John, I'm not in love with him!"

"Then what do you call thoroughly looking at him when we met him? What do you call staying after the case for an hour for tea and biscuits, engaging in small talk like you never do, right up until there was only one biscuit on the plate? What do you call going out to dinner with him, dressed up all fancy as you did? What do you call coming home from said dinner, obviously happy?"

"He's dying, John!"

The clock's ticking seemed thunderous in the silence that followed.

"John, when we met him, did you see his features? His skin was a sickly color, his eyes were dulled, he was thin. _Too_ thin. He hasn't been eating enough! He hasn't been taking care of himself! I stayed for tea afterwards and ate all of the biscuits but the last one hoping that he would figure that eating it would be less work than putting it in a container that would have been otherwise empty and putting it away! I invited him to dinner hoping that I could convince him to eat a little more, and dressed nice because he seemed a little offput by my appearance this morning! And I came back happy because I _did_ convince him to eat something!"

John stared at Sherlock, taking in this information.

"And of _course_ you're special to me, John! I did all of this because I saw you in him!"

"What?" John breathed.

"John, when I met you, you were getting thin. Your disorders from the war weren't doing you any favors. People who have someone they love suffering from something, they're much more likely to take action against said thing to help other victims. Cancer, for example. I helped him because I saw that he had weaknesses you've overcome. I saw you, John. I helped him, John, because I lov-" Sherlock trailed off and cleared his throat. "Well, I think you get the idea, so I won't waste your time with the rest of the explanation."

"No, no, no!" John interjected. "What were you going to say?"

Sherlock met John's gaze. The two stood in silence until Sherlock mustered up the courage to finish the sentence.

"John… I love you."

John closed his eyes and nodded, drinking in the sentence that he had yearned to hear for so long. He let out a chuckle, not of resentment this time, but of true happiness. He then looked at Sherlock, only to see his expression. He thought for a second that his friend was mad at him, but that didn't seem right.

Sherlock had tensed up and was hugging himself. His bright blue eyes were wide, and he was trembling a little. He wasn't mad, he was scared.

It took John only a moment to figure out why. He himself had been afraid to admit his feelings to Sherlock for months, maybe even years, and here Sherlock, the sociopath, the one who usually shied away from such emotions, had to be the one to admit them.

John echoed the sentence he knew would put his friend at ease. "I love you, too."

As if on cue, Sherlock visibly relaxed and a small smile appeared on his face.

"So, um, you and Charlie…?"

"Yes, we are just acquaintances who care for each other's needs."

"So… you're friends."

Sherlock made a noncomittal gesture. "I guess you could call it that if you like, but in my mind, there's only one person I know who deserves such an affectionate term."

John grinned. "Well if that's the case, then I guess it would only be fair that you called him your friend if you called me your boyfriend- if, of course, if you'd like that."

Sherlock positively glowed with the idea. "Why, of course!" He then turned something of a shade of pink. "Um, John, what if tomorrow, we went to see the movie you wanted to see?"

"But I thought you said it would be predictable?"

Sherlock waved a hand. "It's no matter. Besides, I've been told that movie theaters sold candy. Maybe they have Maltesers."

At this, John couldn't help but laugh. "You're telling me that whenever I wanted to see a movie, all I had to know was that you have a weakness for Maltesers?"

Sherlock recoiled at his boyfriend's choice of words. "I don't have a _weakness_ for them, John. I just enjoy them."

"It's a date, then," John said, and after a moment of debating whether it was too early, stood on his tiptoes and gave Sherlock a gentle kiss on the lips.

Sherlock beamed at this, and John returned the smile, but it soon fell from his face.

"I'm sorry about-"

"It's okay, John. It turned out fine."

John hugged his companion, smile returning to his face.

In just a few minutes, Sherlock had taken what was going to be a very bad day in turned it into the best day John had had in years.

* * *

So, yeah. I think that this was my first romance-type story, so I hope it wasn't bad. Have a nice day, y'all!


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